Embracing Our Mortality

Hard choices in an age of medical miracles

Lawrence Schneiderman

A unique approach to the trying medical choices many of us have to make at the end of our lives, combining science, empathy, and an acceptance of death

Embracing Our Mortality

Hard choices in an age of medical miracles

Lawrence Schneiderman

Description

While we would all prefer to die at home, quietly and peacefully, in fact most of us will die in a health care facility, many of us hooked up to machines and faced with tough alternatives. In Embracing Our Mortality, Dr. Lawrence J. Schneiderman captures medical decision-making in action at the end of life, a time when the physician's and patient's choices are the most difficult, and the most heart-wrenching to make.

Vivid case studies are drawn from Dr. Schneiderman's fifty-year career that illuminate the challenging medical decisions many of us have to make when we are seriously, and possibly even terminally, ill. The cases deal with patients ranging from newborns to the elderly. We discover how the wrong decision can actually increase our pain and suffering, while adding little time, and virtually no quality, to the end of our lives. Schneiderman discusses the latest empirical research, showing the reader how to evaluate statistical claims and assess the probability that a particular course of treatment will significantly improve our medical condition. Moreover, he draws on authors such as Tolstoy and Chekov to emphasise the importance of empathy and imagination in making these crucial decisions. Instead of promoting the false promises of "miracles," he urges patients, family members, and physicians to approach these difficult decisions with sensitive yet realistic outlooks, combining the latest medical technology and oldest humanistic visions. Perhaps most important, he underscores the life-enhancing value of honestly facing, and embracing, our mortality.

Written by an eminent physician and ethicist recognised for his groundbreaking work on end-of-life medical issues, Embracing Our Mortality is an essential volume for everyone who wants the best possible care at the end of their life.

Embracing Our Mortality

Hard choices in an age of medical miracles

Lawrence Schneiderman

Table of Contents

Introduction: Facts, Statistics, Empathy, and Imagination 1: Putting in Writing What You Want ( and Don't Want) 2: What May Happen If You Don't Make it "Clear and Convincing" 3: Facts and Statistics 4: Empathy and Imagination 5: Ancient Myth and Modern Medicine: What Can We Learn From the Past? 6: Hoping for a Miracle 7: What Could Be Wrong with Hope? 8: Medical Futility 9: Beyond Futility to an Ethic of Care 10: Future Decisions We May All Have to Make Appendix: "Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward", Ann Sexton "Spring and All", William Carlos Williams UCSD Medical Center Policy & Procedures: Limitation of Life Sustaining Treatment

Embracing Our Mortality

Hard choices in an age of medical miracles

Lawrence Schneiderman

Author Information

Lawrence Schneiderman, Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego, USA

Embracing Our Mortality

Hard choices in an age of medical miracles

Lawrence Schneiderman

Reviews and Awards

"This book is engaging, due in large part to the case studies and literary references. The concise arrangement of short chapters with numerous references makes the book manageable, but substantial enough to be valuable. The honest and realistic information is a welcome alternative to the inaccurate depictions of the end of life provided by the media." - Doody's Notes